A Big Deal

Almost every day, I spend the afternoon on the couch thinking about what I want to write either on one of my posts or on one of my novels.

At 76 years of age, I have put myself into a position where I can do this without thinking about where my next dollar is going to come from.  For 46 years I worked (1968-2014) in a variety of jobs and by doing so, earned the right to receive Social Security.  Of course, I paid into the system as did my employers.

I also managed to save a fair amount of money so that I could withdraw $2,000/month to supplement my social security income, thereby living very similarly to the way I was living when working.

My wife and I did not spend our money foolishly on things we did not need but on things we needed in order for us to be comfortable.  That still enabled us to live a very exciting and enjoyable life participating in Caribbean Cruises, Flights to Europe and across the USA, along with visits to Hawaii and Alaska, as well as Myrtle Beach, SC.

We cannot spend a summer without going at least once to Myrtle Beach.  We stay in a condo facing the ocean, eat out every night and including the cost of driving there and back, spend less than $2,000 for 7 nights.

But today, as I sit here on this couch thinking of what I want to write, I look around my environment and am very pleased with what I see.

• We own our $400,000 home
• We have no debt of any kind
• We have no unnecessary space
• I maintain the yard in under an hour
• We are strategically located to
• the interstate
• a skilled hospital
• a gasoline station
• a grocery store
• restaurants
• shopping 
• entertainment

While our age is an issue and our health is not the best, we will still live another decade and a half, maybe more.  Retired for 25 years or more with money to cover it all...

That gives us peace of mind and happiness and gratitude for a life well lived, but not totally void of mistakes...  

However, when we look back upon what we have done, neither one of us would change anything that we have done...

And that's a BIG DEAL...

Somewhat Political

 

What the Euclid Space Telescope Sees

The Euclid Space Telescope has revealed the "first page" of the cosmic atlas it is building. The section of the map of the cosmos being built by Euclid was released on Monday (Oct. 15), and it features tens of millions of stars within the Milky Way and around 14 million distant galaxies beyond our own.


The vast cosmic mosaic was constructed from 260 Euclid observations collected between March 25 and April 8, 2024 and contains 208 gigapixels of data. The region charted is around 500 times as wide as the full moon appears in the sky over Earth.

Perhaps most astoundingly, the mosaic accounts for just 1% of the total survey Euclid will conduct over the next six years as it tracks the shapes, distances and movements of galaxies as far as 10 billion light-years away. Not only will this result in the largest 3D map of the cosmos ever created, but the vast scale of this map will help scientists investigate the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy, sometimes collectively known as the "dark universe."     READ MORE...

John Lennon - Imagine - 1971

State of TN - East TN

 

The state of Tennessee has a few big cities (although these cities will never compare to NYC, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, etc.) which are Bristol, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Nashville, and Memphis.

In East TN, Bristol and Knoxville are considered to be larger than most others like Morristown, Greenville, or Strawberry Plains.

It is difficult to say if Chattanooga belongs to middle TN or east TN, but if you look at the map, it is at the southern end of middle TN.

Nashville is by far the largest city in TN but for a comparison, Atlanta has 0.14 million more people than Nashville.

What is so special about East TN?

• Moderate climate all year long
• cheaper to live
• lower taxes
• low crime rate
• minimal illegal immigrants
• minimal illegal drugs
• excellent law enforcement
• close to Cherokee casino
• close to NASCAR racetrack
• close to excellent UT Medical hospital
• close to University of Tennessee
• close to Oak Ridge National Labs
• close to Mcghee-Tyson airport
• close to Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Dollywood
• Protected by Cumberland Plateau and Smoky Mountains
• TVA Parks and Recreation
• More rural than urban
• always receive southern hospitality
• Less traffic and congestion

Negatives:

• limited public transportation
• low wages
• no traffic nightmares
• no subway system
• no corrupt law enforcement
• no NYC-type rude people
• no professional sports (Nashville only)
• no off-Broadway plays
• no really expensive cuisines
• no hordes of taxis
• no homeless encampments

I have been living here since 1990, about 34 years (in two months) and while I have only lived in VA, NC, and KY as far as a comparison is concerned, I have visited numerous other cities and find this area to be preferred...  at least by me.

North Carolina (NC) is probably the closest to being like East TN, but NC is much more advanced in the sense that it has more industry and more people both of which dwindle the similarities.

An MBA is a dime a dozen skill in NC whereas in TN, especially East TN it is a very unique skill to have and in 1990, it was a very rare skill to possess.  Most of the MBAs ventured north for higher wages, leaving behind a gold mine for those who wanted to stay.

Even with less money, I had more than my counterparts who ventured North.  If these transplants relocated to the south, then they had the advantage financially, but I saw that as a high price to pay for FORTY YEARS OF HAPPINESS.

Kamala Harris for President

 

Politics and the Media

 

Mainstream Media which includes CNN, CBS, MSNBC, and ABC have, since 2016 (and possibly earlier) slanted the news, suppressed the news, and/or eliminated the news by not reporting it...  IF made the DEMOCRATIC PARTY LOOK BAD.

This is the kind of behavior that one would expect to take place in countries like China, Russia, North Korea, India, the Middle East, and other countries that embrace SOCIALISM and COMMUNISM and DICTATORSHIPS.

Up until recently, the USA has never been that type of country, although, there have been times where our government has asked the PRESS not to publish stories that might negatively impact national security...  and while that too is wrong, it is still somewhat understandable.

Our country's values were based upon and predicated upon FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, not the PRESS deciding what stories to publish and what stories not to, and certainly not to align themselves with political parties.

It would appear that the LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC party has gotten control of mainstream media and is making an attempt to influence how the media is reporting the news of the day in the hopes of influence public opinion in THEIR FAVOR

ARE THEY AFRAID THAT PUBLIC OPINION WOULD GO AGAINST THEM, IF THE PUBLIC KNEW THE TRUTH OF THEIR ACTIONS???

This type of control of the media is only done when a group of people have something to HIDE.

The TRUTH is the TRUTH so why do the DEMOCRATS want to SLANT THE TRUTH in order to favor them?

Is the general public THAT NAIVE???

My Dear Friend

 

Misinformation

 

Does She Have the Right Stuff?

Friend or Foe?

 

Belief in an Afterlife

 

LOVE

 

In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> Sean "Diddy" Combs faces seven new civil lawsuits, which include allegations of raping a 13-year-old girl; Combs is currently in jail in New York on racketeering and sex trafficking charges (More)

> Producer of "Blade Runner 2049" sues Elon Musk, Tesla, and Warner Bros. Discovery for using images of the film without permission during Tesla's Cybercab promo event (More)

> Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy's upstart tech-infused golf league TGL sets Jan. 7 launch date with the first team match broadcast on ESPN (More)


Science & Technology
> Wall Street Journal, NY Post, and others sue AI platform Perplexity, claiming its chatbot violates copyright law (More) | Microsoft to unveil tools to build customizable AI agents—bots designed for specific tasks—in its Copilot Studio (More)

> Paleontologists discover smallest fossilized dinosaur eggs found to date; 80-million-year-old specimens likely laid by an undiscovered type of dinosaur (More)

> Deep brain stimulation may be effective at treating depression, new clinical study suggests; test uses a wearable cap to deliver gentle electrical voltages at home (More)


Business & Markets
> US stock markets close mixed (S&P 500 -0.2%, Dow -0.8%, Nasdaq +0.3%) (More) | Shares of Kenvue—the maker of Tylenol and Listerine—close up 5% after activist investor Starboard Value reportedly takes large stake (More)

> The Walt Disney Co. to appoint outgoing CEO Bob Iger's successor in early 2026, taps Morgan Stanley veteran James Gorman as chair (More)

> Payments giant Stripe acquires stablecoin payments company Bridge for $1.1B (More) | Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies tied to the value of a traditional currency; see overview (More)


Politics & World Affairs
> Biden administration proposes rule to expand access to contraceptive products, including requiring health insurance companies to cover recommended over-the-counter birth control (More) | Student loan repayments paused for six additional months for 8 million borrowers under the SAVE plan (More)

> Moldovans vote in favor of the country joining the European Union by thin margin, with 99% of the votes counted and 50.46% voting "yes" to the referendum; Moldova, once part of the Soviet Union, lies between Ukraine and Romania (More)

> Fethullah Gülen, a US-based Turkish cleric accused of orchestrating 2016 coup attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, dies at age 83 (More) | US activist Thelma Mothershed-Wair, member of Little Rock Nine, dies at age 83 (More)

SOURCE:  1440 NEWS

Law & Order America

 

The United States of America prides itself on being a country that is full of law-abiding citizens, and when laws are broken that JUSTICE IS BLIND...  that is to say everyone is treated equally under the law.

HOWEVER...

most of us who are fortunate enough to live to the age of 40 and beyond, come to realize that AMERICAN LAW is not equally applied, and that JUSTICE IS NOT BLIND.

For instance...

• The law is applied differently to white citizens than it is to black citizens.
• Wealthy people can hire better lawyers than poor people can, so the law is applied differently.
• The law is applied differently to sons and daughters of elected officials with the understanding that the higher the elected position, the more legal protection one has.
• If you are super wealthy, the odds are the law does not really apply to you at all...  although, there are some exceptions.
• Illegal immigration is a new approach on how the laws of the USA are not applied equally.
• In small towns in the SOUTH, the laws are applied differently to locals and those passing through.
• We also have knowledge of building inspectors taking bribes so that the building codes can be over-looked.
• We all know that law enforcement breaks the law all the time, in order to catch criminals.
• Recently, the law has been used to try and stop a political opponent, which is a new twist on how differently the law is applied.

America is a country full of laws, that are broken all the time by its citizens...  so much so, that it is almost laughable that we call ourselves a country of LAWS.

Somewhat Political

 

Life on Earth Came From SPACE

New evidence has emerged suggesting that the building blocks of life were delivered to the primordial Earth from space by meteorites, a finding that could help scientists hunt for alien life.

These meteorites would have been the fractured remains of early "unmelted asteroids," a type of planetesimal. Planetesimals are small rocky bodies that served as the main building blocks of the solar system's rocky planets, including Earth. 

They were formed around 4.6 billion years ago in the disk of dust and gas around the infant sun as particles around our young star began to stick together, accreting more mass and making progressively larger bodies.     READ MORE...

Kamala Harris

 

Janis Joplin // Me and Bobby McGee // Acoustic Version // 1970

Candidates